The Indian Borderland, 1880-1900

Preface DURING the last twenty-five years a great change has been effected in the measure of our information about the regions of farther India on the north- west. Twenty-five years ago all that we knew of frontier geography was narrowed to a few lines running westward from India and terminating in the cities of the Afghan and Baluch highlands. The hills which faced us on our own border, on to which we could step from the plains, were still shrouded in mystery, and our knowledge of the people was as shadowy as that of their land. Those who came to us we knew, but those who had no dealings with India formed for the most part but interesting ethnological problems.

It is with the object of illustrating some of the many steps in the process of this change, and with the hope of rescuing from oblivion a few minor frontier episodes, that I have written this book.

In it I have been careful (so far as is consistent with maintaining continuity of historical narrative) to write only of those things which my eyes have seen, or with which I have been personally concerned.

**Contents and Sample Pages**